Ehud Barak Quotes
The Palestinian Authority cannot hold the stick at both ends: to incite violence, to participate in it, and to tell the world how - what kind of underdog they are.
Barak, Ehud. Interview by Larry King. Larry King Live, CNN, 10 Oct. 2000.
Syria was launching and supoorting Palestenian terror attacks Israel, and then was complaining when Israel retaliated. The American Ambassador, a known pro-Arab, even suggested that the Syrians curtail their support for the terror attacks.
This was an interview with Reuters News Agency in English. Arab leaders often make English Statements to the Western Press which are completely contradictory to what they say to their Arab constituents and followers. In this case he seems to acknowledge that Hamas and he do not deny the right of Israel to exist and accepts that nation per se. Yet at the same time Meshaal has never made this statement in Arabic and has made no gesture to change the Hamas Charter which calls for the destruction and elimination of Israel or to criticize the Hamas other leaders and followers who constantly call for “Death to Israel” and the destruction of the Jewish state. See {585395} for an eloquent statement of the practice of Arab leaders and politicians.
Ehud Barak is an Israeli general and politician who served as the tenth Prime Minister from 1999 to 2001. He was leader of the Labor Party until January 2011. He previously held the posts of Minister of Defense and Deputy Prime Minister under Ehud Olmert and then in Benjamin Netanyahu's second government from 2007 to 2013, as he retired from politics at the end of the tenure, though he returned in June 2019 with the formation of a new party.